Chanequa Walker-Barnes > Quotes

“A hallmark of contemporary Christian theology is its view that the fundamental sin of humanity is pride, that is, preoccupation with the self. In contrast, love, particularly Christian love, is assumed to be entirely self-giving and devoid of concern about the self. These teachings, however, bear a particular danger—that of martyrdom—for African-American women who are socialized to live, love, and labor under the weight of atoning for the “sins” of the race as imagined by White patriarchal racism.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength

“The modern church encourages African-American women to keep others’ vineyards, while neglecting their own, in two ways: by venerating Black women’s performance of strength and depending upon women’s labor and financial support to maintain the church, without providing equal opportunity for Black women to exercise their gifts in ministerial leadership; and by distorting Scripture in a way that encourages suffering and self-sacrifice among Black women.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength

“For Christians engaged in racial reconciliation, in particular, solidarity is based upon our shared identity as followers of Christ who are bound together through our baptismal covenant. Thus, our solidarity must be evinced by what Duane Bidwell identifies as the characteristics of “helpful and healthful covenant partnerships”: (1) relational justice (the sharing of power, opportunity, and rewards); (2) equal regard (an ethic of interdependent mutuality in which partners empathize with and seek the flourishing of one another); (3) mutual empowerment (the capacity to influence and be influenced by others without domination or losing one’s identity); (4) respect for embodiment (honoring the body of the other, including their lived realities, as a reliable and trustworthy informant about them, the world, and the Divine); (5) and resistance to colonization (working to prevent and dismantle the internalization of harmful cultural beliefs).”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“White America’s trust in the system and related belief in its own merit pose a frequent roadblock in racial reconciliation. Many Whites in these settings are fine with discussing White supremacy as an abstract principle, or a historical artifact, or even as an ongoing reality in the lives of people of color. But they are highly resistant to examining their own privilege or to the suggestion that any element of their success may be the product of racial privilege.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“People often view racism as social division based on race; that is, racism occurs when people align and separate themselves based on their affinity for people of the same race and their hostility toward people of other races. A popular way to put this has been to define racism as “prejudice plus power,” that is, it is having the personal power to act on one’s feelings about racial difference. This understanding reduces racism to the level of affect and interpersonal relationships: racism occurs because of how we as individuals feel about other ethnic groups; reconciliation occurs when we eliminate our negative feelings about other racial groups and establish relationships across race.

But racism is not about our feelings. Nor is it about the attitudes, intentions, or behavior of individuals. Racism is an interlocking system of oppression that is designed to promote and maintain White supremacy, the notion that White people—including their bodies, aesthetics, beliefs, values, customs, and culture—are inherently superior to all other races and therefore should wield dominion over the rest of creation, including other people groups, the animal kingdom, and the earth itself.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“White supremacy means that, more often than not, US structures and systems—and the authorities who govern them—were designed to protect White interests and to maintain White dominance in all areas of society. Thus, White Americans are more likely to trust the system because they have been able to count on the fact that it will work in their favor. Moreover, in the cases where the system does not work in their favor, they could assume that it was due to some factor other than their race.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Indeed, a consequence of color-blind racial ideology is that, because it implies that race is a bad thing, it also implies that those who identify as raced—that is, people of color—are thus morally inferior to those who do not—that is, White people. Thus it reinforces the supremacy of whiteness even as it renders whiteness invisible.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Where is the space for lamenting the suffering of African-American women in a theological and societal context that teaches them that their contemporary suffering is divinely ordained and is the salvation of the race?”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength

“Splitting is the answer to the question, “How could White people consider themselves Christian while engaging in the daily horrors of slavery, especially when those horrors were targeted toward their supposed brothers and sisters in Christ?” Essentially, White Christians learned to separate their personal ethics from their social ethics. In order to preserve their self-images as good people, they had to minimize, repress, and deny their sinfulness—their active participation in racial oppression or silent complicity with it. Further, they had to create theologies and ecclesiologies that supported this minimization, repression, and denial. Thus, Christian identity became a matter of orthodoxy rather than orthopraxy. In other words, believing in God and feeling good about one’s personal relationship with God became more critical in defining Christian identity than did acting in a manner consistent with Christian social ethics.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Only after the rise of the Nazi party and the atrocities of the Holocaust was racial science widely rejected. Subsequently, many earlier proponents of racial science began to retract or modify the claims of their previous work, and by the end of World War II, scholarly interest in race had shifted from “proving” the science of race to challenging its ontology and examining the root of racial prejudice. Then, in the 1960s, as the civil rights movement drew widespread visibility to southern racism, many Whites attempted to distance themselves from the image of the “mean racist” by abandoning any mention of race altogether. This was especially the case with respect to whiteness. Having thoroughly identified whiteness with White supremacists, many Whites simply stopped thinking of themselves as White. They crafted a color-blind racial ideology that reinforced the idea that noticing, acknowledging, or talking about race was undesirable. Likewise, noticing, acknowledging, or talking about racism was also undesirable.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“To put it bluntly, much of what passes for racial reconciliation among Christians is merely an exercise in making sure Black men and other men of color have the same access to male privilege as their White counterparts do.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Captivity shapes not only why we engage in the movement for reconciliation, but also how we do it. As captives, we recognize that we are not in control, neither of our own journey nor of that of others. While we may choose our path on any given day, we do not control its direction or its destination. We must release our need to control the direction of dialogue and action, instead taking a position of submission and service. This requires us to relinquish ego, competition, pride, and fear, replacing them with humility, cooperation, and trust. Captivity also demands that we open ourselves to the possibility of personal and institutional change that does not take the shape that we expect or the form with which we are comfortable. Entering the breach requires us to see and touch the places of brokenness in ourselves, in others, and in our world. In these broken spaces, we glimpse God in new ways and we risk being made new.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“In the Hebrew canon, in essence, the people of Israel are made captive because they have refused to pursue peace, justice, and reconciliation. In contrast, when we are held captive to God’s mission of reconciliation, we are bound in such a way that we cannot help but pursue peace, justice, and reconciliation.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Always and everywhere, the bodies and behavior of women of color are judged by standards that are neither of their making nor of their choosing, standards that maintain and reinforce White supremacist heteropatriarchy. Meanwhile, those who claim to be ambassadors in God’s mission of racial reconciliation remain silent about their oppression. Indeed, with its demand that the oppressed be “in relationship” with their oppressors, the racial reconciliation movement may expose vulnerable women of color to even greater abuse and mistreatment.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“To say that women and men of color experience differing forms of racism does not mean that either group is somehow more disadvantaged by racism than the other.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Indeed, many understandings of racial reconciliation emphasize repentance from White supremacy as the critical response to truth-telling. After all, it makes sense that repentance follows confession. However, placing our primary emphasis upon the transformative work that must happen for White Christians in racial reconciliation actually reinforces White supremacy. When we prioritize the narratives of women of color, we realize that the victims of racial oppression have considerable work of their own to do, work that is both independent of and connected to that of White repentance. This is the work of liberation and healing.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Emerging in the 1980s as a reaction to Black liberation theology and feminist theology, womanist theology privileges Black women’s lives as “texts,” sources of authority that can tell us something about the nature of God and about the nature of the human condition. It draws from the rich well of the beliefs, traditions, and practices that have enabled Black women to “make a way out of no way.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“It is easy, and all too common, to confuse watching for God as a passive acceptance of reality. But watching for God is an act of holy observation and subversive hope. In the midst of turmoil, chaos, and despair, it asks, "What is God doing, and what would God have us to do?”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“The telos, or divine “endgame,” for racial reconciliation is not restored relationship between Whites and people of color. It is not, as one ministry colleague, activist Onleilove Alston, once sarcastically described it, the image of “a big Black dude and a White dude on a stage, hugging it out with a single tear rolling down their cheeks.” It is the establishment of a just world, one in which racial inequities have been abolished. This means that the current practices, policies, and societal norms that disadvantage people of color or advantage White people must be abolished and corrected. Further, there must be intentional, sustained, and large-scale effort to remediate the economic, educational, political, social, physical, and psychological harm inflicted upon people of color by racism.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“The manifestations of White fragility often vary by gender; men are more likely to evince anger, argumentativeness, and aggression, whereas women are more likely to employ tears and proclamations of fear and helplessness.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation

“With its genealogy in Black women’s experiences and activism, intersectionality is not neutral; it is always concerned with and biased toward justice.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Being White in America is akin to being a fish that, having lived its entire life in water, is unable to describe water or even to understand that water exists. It cannot imagine “wet” because it has never experienced “dry.” Likewise, most White Americans cannot describe “White” because they have never experienced “not White.” In fact, White supremacy means that even when they do experience “not White,” they think of it as “wrong.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Part of the grace that we have to learn to extend to ourselves is the forgiveness for our failures to be all things to all people. Many of us drawn to the journey of reconciliation have a deeply held sense of responsibility for others. This is especially the case for women of color, who often endure the pain of reconciliation out of a sense of duty to make the world better for others. Grace means that we must learn to see ourselves with compassion, to embrace our full imperfect humanity, and to listen to the truths that emerge from our own lives.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“De Kock was one of only three white South Africans who were sentenced to prison for their participation in the apartheid regime after 1994. His conviction came because the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that he had not been fully forthcoming about his crimes, which was a condition for amnesty. He served 20 years of a 212-year sentence before being paroled in 2015. During his time in prison, he began engaging the families of victims, helping them to find the remains of loved ones whom he had killed. Some, therefore, have touted him as an exemplar of restorative justice. It is important to note, however, that de Kock’s supposed shift actually marks a considerable degree of consistency in his behavior. Just as he followed the law under the apartheid regime, he is following the law under the post-apartheid government. His process of ethical decision making has not necessarily changed. The critical issue for White Christians is not how they embody their humanity when the legal system supports justice, but how they do so when it does not.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“The aim of describing gendered racism is not to produce a sort of “oppression Olympics” in which groups jockey for the position of the most marginalized. Rather, considering how different groups experience racism gives us a more comprehensive understanding of how racism operates.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“The exclusion of women’s racial experiences from dialogue on racial reconciliation is not simply a problem for women; it precludes any real understanding of the dynamics of race and racism. Historically, women’s bodies have been the sites upon which racial boundaries have been policed and racial wars have been fought. In the United States, for example, two of the primary ways by which White supremacist patriarchy has exercised its power have been by controlling what White women could do with their bodies and by demonstrating that Black women’s bodies were violable. Thus, marginalizing the voices of women of color results in anemic understandings of racism that hinder our efforts toward reconciliation. If we truly hope to work toward racial reconciliation, the perspectives of women of color must be moved from margin to center.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“I suspect that much of the debate about racial reconciliation is really a tension between two types of personalities: dreamers (or idealists) and realists (or pragmatists). Racial reconciliation requires both. We must dream of beloved community while also remaining grounded in the realities of a society that is stratified by intersectional racism.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“An intersectional understanding of racial reconciliation rejects outright the lie that reconciliation is about relationship. It instead centers upon dismantling White supremacy and White power structures.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“The call to racial reconciliation has overwhelmingly emphasized between-group processes, that is, the relationships between Whites and people of color, or between different racial/ethnic minority groups. By and large, it has ignored the depth and severity of internalized oppression among people of color and the enormous need for healing these wounds. Repeated and systemic experiences of dehumanization not only inflict direct harm; they diminish the capacity of the oppressed to recognize themselves as human and, moreover, as beloved by God.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity

“Earlier, I stated that social constructivist arguments were necessary to expose the wizard behind the curtain of Jim Crow racism, which relied upon pseudoscientific claims that Blacks were inherently genetically inferior to Whites. Today, the primary challenge for racial justice is not exposing the wizard behind the curtain. It is revealing how the wizard exerts its power in visible and not-so-visible ways. It is exposing the powers and principalities of racism in a “postracial” age. Social constructionism takes us only so far in doing that. That is because the social constructionist argument is, first and foremost, an argument about the scientific utility of race as a variable for analysis; hence, the racial eliminativist assertion that race is not a biological reality and thus should not be treated as such in scientific research. This does not mean, however, that scientists believe that the concept of race has no social or cultural significance. In other words, the fact that race is socially constructed does not mean that it is not real.”
― Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity